Insanity Claim Made

Suspect Goes On Trial

April 24, 1985|By Mary Anderson, Staff Writer

Prosecuting and defense attorneys agreed in opening statements Tuesday in Jimmy Ray Burke`s first-degree murder trial that the carpenter`s helper beat a 36-year-old drifter in the skull with a rock and set him on fire in some Plantation woods.

They also agreed that Burke, 34, called the 911 emergency number hours later to report that he had killed a man in that manner ``because I felt like it.``

But they do not agree on the issue of Burke`s sanity when he committed the March 25, 1984, offense in which Ralph Russo was left smoldering but moaning and still alive.

Russo suffered severe burns over at least half of his body and lost an arm, a leg, an ear and muscle from neck to thighs as he languished comatose in the burn unit of Shands Teaching Hospital in Gainesville. He died May 11, 1984.

The Public Defender`s Office has pursued all avenues in developing Burke`s insanity defense for the two-week trial, assigning three lawyers.

The lawyers said their task has been difficult because Burke has been ``uncommunicative.``

Assistant Public Defender Doug McNeill told the jury Tuesday that psychiatric examinations and an inquiry into Burke`s troubled past revealed a sexually abused child from a broken home who turned to glue-sniffing and alcohol by the time he was 10 or 11.

The chronic addiction induced frequent trancelike states and eventually damaged his brain to the point he lost the ability to reason, McNeill said.

``He lacked the capacity to understand the difference between right and wrong,`` he told the nine-woman, three-man panel.

But prosecutor Marc Gordon said Burke`s taped conversations with two 911 dispatchers were ``clear, distinct and will tell you what occurred March 25, based on his own words.``

The tapes not only act as a confession, but also prove that Burke intended to kill Russo and knew afterward what he had done, the prosecutor said.

Gordon said before the trial began that he also will seek to dispute the insanity argument by admitting into evidence a feature film called Dreamscape.

The science fiction film, in which the characters live partly in their own horrific dreams, was initially listed as possible defense evidence based on Burke`s claims that in his hallucinations he somehow identified with a murderous lizard-like being that appeared in the film`s dream sequences.

But the prosecutor found the film had not been released in Florida until August -- long after Russo`s slaying -- and the defense decided against using it.

Now, Gordon said the film could help the state`s case by damaging the credibility of defense psychiatrist Arthur Stillman, whose February examination took Burke at his word that he had seen the movie.

Stillman reported that Burke now fits the legal definition of sanity despite his brain damage.